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¡Viva los Muertos!
"¡Viva los Muertos!" is the eleventh episode in the second season of The Venture Bros. It was written by Ben Edlund (creator of The Tick), and is notable for being the only episode of The Venture Bros. not written by Jackson Publick or Doc Hammer. Plot The beginning of the episode is told from the first-person perspective of one of the Monarch's henchmen as the Monarch and his men prepare to storm the Venture compound again. It goes badly as the henchman sees a blood-drenched Brock Samson in the process of killing his fellows; he attempts to escape, but his head is broken by Brock and the screen goes black, indicating his death. After the title sequence, the episode continues from the perspective of the henchman as he is resurrected as a Frankenstein-esque monster, reanimated by Dr. Thaddeus Venture himself. As he becomes aware of what has happened, he attempts to strangle Dr. Venture, and is hastily re-killed by Brock and subsequently re-resurrected. Meanwhile, outside the Venture compound, a van containing a quartet of aging hippies and their large dog comes upon the Venture compound. The newcomers resemble the cast of the Scooby-Doo series, as well as certain infamous criminals of the late 60s and early 70s. Ted, an overbearing bully, decides that the compound must be haunted and that, by implication, there is a mystery to be solved, and forces everyone to join him to investigate. The rest of the group seems uninterested, as Val spouts radical feminist vitriol from the SCUM Manifesto, and once makes a sexual advance on Patty, implying that she is a lesbian. Patty, however, just wants to go to her parents' house, as she has for the last 10 years, and Sonny is repeatedly ordered to kill everybody by the dog Groovy, which is apparently possessed by a German-accented demon who only Sonny can hear. Ted bullies his peers into coming with him, with the exception of Sonny and Groovy, who he orders to search for clues on their own, enticed by a pill bottle of "groovy treats." Inside the compound, the Ventures are eating in the kitchen with Venturestein, and Venturestein learns he now has an African-American cranium complete with Afro hairstyle. Dr. Venture explains his experiment: he can put corpses and dead people to good use as manual labor and keep them productive even after death. The zombie seems perturbed by the presence of Brock, who in turn is genuinely put off by Venturestein, but the zombie begins to cheer up when the boys teasingly tell him that "Brock bad" for killing him. Dr. Orpheus arrives and informs Dr. Venture of his plans to have a get-together in his portion of the compound. Orpheus is suspicious about the resurrected corpse, and invites Brock, who he suspects is troubled, to the event which he promises will be both spiritual and therapeutic in nature. Later, Hank and Dean are distraught when they can't find "African America" on a map. They mention that they can't get into their "learning beds" because Venturestein has been put in one to learn how to "socialize" (though actually he is learning how to be a child laborer, watching old training films produced in the 1960s). The boys hear odd noises in the hall and investigate. Venturestein, upon hearing the word "zapato" (shoe) from the phrase "Viva los zapatos" which almost literally means "Living the shoes," he smashes out of the bed and crashes around the compound; hoping to find one. Meanwhile, the hippies come across Dr. Orpheus and Venturestein and assume that the compound is a Dracula/Frankenstein factory. Sonny and Groovy come upon Hank and Dean, and Sonny is scared out of his wits. In a flashback, we see that he and Groovy murdered the boys two years earlier in a cave. Sonny "freaked out" after bumping into the boys, Groovy tore Hank's throat out and Sonny beat Dean's head in with a flashlight; Ted helped to toss the boys' corpses into a mine shaft. Sonny, unaware that Hank & Dean have been revived from death numerous times via cloning, concludes that Hank and Dean are "g-g-g-g-GHOSTS!!!" Brock is now clearly in a funk, and after several failed attempts at throwing knives for target practice, decides to go to Dr. Orpheus' party after all. Meanwhile, Dr. Venture is thrilled to find that the military wants to use his reanimated corpses as soldiers, providing a much more lucrative business deal. When confronted with the shortage of corpses around the compound, he blithely asks Brock to go kill some people; Brock refuses. After introductions of the other attendees (including the Order of the Triad and an Amazonian mystic), Dr. Orpheus passes a round of drinks made from psychotropic plant vines (similar to a ritual DMT ceremony). The mystic excitedly relates the story of his sexual encounter with a dolphin as Dr. Orpheus and the others begin vomiting with the onset of the hallucinatory effects. Brock knocks back the strange brew and complains of the wretched taste. In a moment of pre-hallucinatory regret Brock admits that he feels bad about killing the henchman that became Venturestein. "Yeah, he was just this guy, this guy in a butterfly suit who got in over his head. I could see it in his eyes that if I just let him go this one time he'd never come back but, then I also thought you know, 'kill him'." Brock vomits, accuses the Amazon shaman of poisoning him, then collapses to the floor. Brock's hallucination begins by riding nude on the back of a pink dolphin in the middle of a vast, pink ocean. The dolphin tells Brock that the path to happiness is through empathy; however, the dolphin is soon harpooned by Brock's ex-mentor Hunter Gathers (post-op, but with pre-op face). Hunter blasts into the air with Brock, telling him (while he is hugging onto Hunter's breast) that he's working for the government and that his entire job is to hunt and kill people, and that "You can't teach a hammer to love nails. That dog don't hunt." Brock then awakens from his trip, and charges out of the party in a confused, homicidal rage. Sonny in the meantime has told Ted of the resurrected Venture boys ("No groovy treats until you find a clue, dirtbag!"); the arrogant Ted doubts him until the boys find the hippies in a dark corridor. Ted produces a gun, intending to put those 'zombies' out for good, and the hippies pursue the terrified boys. Hank and Dean run into a dark lab room, only to find many life-support tubes holding their many yet-to-be-animated clone-slugs. Both boys fall to the floor and curl up in the fetal position, whimpering. The hippies run into the clone lab and Ted prepares to shoot the brothers. However, Venturestein enters behind them sending the five in a panic and Ted opens fire on Venturestein, accidentally shattering one of the clone tubes. Venturestein slips on a lifeless Hank clone slug, which sends him toward the hippies, and, in the process, grabs a growling Groovy, breaking his neck. As the others run, they have the misfortune of running into Brock, at whom Ted makes the mistake of pointing his gun. Brock grabs Ted and starts to twist and snap his wrist, at which point the gun goes off and shoots Sonny in the chest, and then headbutts Ted in the forehead, killing him instantly (Val and Patty—who took no part in the attempted murder of the Venture brothers—manage to escape, while Sonny briefly babbles to himself before dying). Brock snaps out of his rage when he see the boys on the floor, and realizes the shock of seeing their clones has sent them into a catatonic state. Dr. Venture arrives and tells his sons the clones were supposed to be their Christmas present: a whole army of them, doing their chores and dangerous missions, etc. The boys leave, happily and oblivious to the nature of the clones. Dr. Venture counts the new corpses, and briefly contemplates killing the clones for his death quota before Brock stops him. After the credits, Brock is seen driving Venturestein (wearing Hank's Batman mask) to buy him prostitutes' services as a way to make up for his murder. Venturestein thinks he can pay for their services with a shoe made from Groovy's severed paw, but Brock assures the monster that he will pay for their services. Venturestein, now obviously over his fear of Brock, cries out "Brock good!" Unfortunately, he punches through the car's roof when he says this, possibly prompting Brock to kill him again as Venturestein is never seen again. Cultural references *The start of the episode being seen through the eyes of future Venturestein and 21 calling him "Tex" are references to an episode of M*A*S*H, which was witnessed through the eyes of a soldier called "Tex" by his friends. *The resurrection scene is a homage to the movie RoboCop. *The name "Venturestein" and the concept of the reanimation of the dead is an allusion to Frankenstein and Frankenstein's monster. *In the opening scene there is a portion in which Brock is killing men with a lawnmower. This references the film Braindead. *The opening dialogue spoken by Dr. Venture to Brock during the resurrection is similar to that of Dr. Frankenstein in the 1931 film, Frankenstein. *The scene in which Brock shows up to Dr. Orpheus' party drenched by rain alludes to a similar scene in ''American Beauty. *The mentions Brock and Dr. Orpheus make to Brock being a "tapestry of quiet desperation" are references to either (or both) the Henry David Thoreau book Walden in which Thoreau claims that most men in urban contemporary society "lead lives of quiet desperation" or the Pink Floyd song Time which contains the line: "Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English Way" (this quote in itself is presumably also a reference to Walden). *The four drifters who resemble celebrated criminals from the 1960s and 1970s, as well as characters from Scooby Doo, are as follows: "Teddy," who resembles Freddy from Scooby Doo, as well as Ted Bundy, a charismatic sociopath and serial killer active between 1974 and 1978; "Patty", who resembles Daphne from Scooby Doo, as well as Patty Hearst, a wealthy newspaper heiress who was kidnapped, brainwashed and radicalized by a U.S. domestic terrorist group, the Symbionese Liberation Army, in 1974; "Val," who resembles Velma from Scooby Doo, as well as Valerie Solanas, a radical lesbian and feminist who attempted to murder the pop artist Andy Warhol in 1968 (several of her character's lines are taken directly from the "SCUM Manifesto," written by Solanas); and "Sonny," who resembles Shaggy from Scooby Doo, as well as David Berkowitz, also known as "Son of Sam," a paranoid schizophrenic and serial killer active between 1976 and 1977, who believed that his orders to kill came from his dog, portrayed in this episode as a talking canine called "Groovy," who resembles the titular character in Scooby Doo. *Before he dies, Sonny utters "I'm so cold; I'm so fucking cold," a reference to Snowden from the book Catch-22. *Ted calls Dean and Hank the "boys from Brazil"; this is a reference to the novel and film The Boys from Brazil, which is about an attempt to clone Adolf Hitler. This was foreshadowed by a line about how the Venture Brothers were once killed in Brazil in the episode ¡Viva_los_Muertos! *One of the attendees at the Death Vine ritual appears to be Angry Kidhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angry_Kid, the featured character in a series of stop motion animations from Darren Walsh at Aardman Animations, depicting the mini-adventures of a 15-year-old brat known as "Angry Kid". *When Dr. Orpheus passes around the cups of Death Vine Extract, Brock asks, "Is this some kind of Jonestown deal?" He is referring to the Jonestown Cult suicides in which members drank poisoned Flavor Aid. *Brock riding naked on the dolphin seems to be yet another in a long line of references to David Bowie, who has a tattoo of a naked man riding a dolphin on the back of his left calf. Connections to other episodes *The Scooby-Doo franchise was created by Hanna-Barbera (the predecessor to Cartoon Network Studios, which airs The Venture Bros.). This allowed them the use of the zany sound effects found in the Scooby-Doo series, just as it allowed them the use of characters from Jonny Quest in previous episodes. *Another death sequence of Hank and Dean is revealed in this episode. Two years before the events of this episode, they were murdered by Sonny and Groovy in a cavern somewhere in Baja California. This was not referenced in the list of Hank and Dean's deaths in "Powerless in the Face of Death", as neither Brock nor Doctor Venture had been around to see how they died and so would obviously be unable to give an explanation of how it happened to Dr. Orpheus.Episode "Powerless in the Face of Death" *One of the henchmen being killed by Brock in the opening scene is one of the Henchmen recruited in "Hate Floats."Episode "Hate Floats" *Dr. Orpheus receives the junk mail of Hector Molina, a former member of Team Venture who lived on the compound until Powerless in the Face of Death *Dr. Venture passes off the clone slugs as would-be Christmas gifts for Hank and Dean. In the third season finale, The Family That Slays Together, Stays Together (Part II) Hank recalls this and urges Dr Venture to send the mindless slugs into battle. Production notes *The title is Spanish for "The Dead Ones Lives!". The correct way of writing it would be "¡Vivan los Muertos! (The Dead Live!)" though the name is an obvious homage to the Elvis Presley song, "Viva Las Vegas". *Ben Edlund previously helped develop the stories for the episodes "Careers in Science,"Episode "Careers in Science" written by Doc Hammer, and "Guess Who's Coming to State Dinner?"Episode "Guess Who's Coming to State Dinner?" written by Jackson Publick. *One of the animation directors (Kimson Albert) has a "nickname" inserted into his credits. The nickname is an unusual line or word from the preceding episode. For "¡Viva los Muertos!" the credit reads Kimson "Quiet Desperation" Albert. *Doctor Venture's "To Do" list consists of these goals: 1) Beat God at His own game 2) Get Money 3) Increase my word power 4) Pushups! References Category:The Venture Bros. episodes Category:2006 television episodes